


Daddy a Day

by ittybittytidbits



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baking, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Some names spelled differently, Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy, dorky daddies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ittybittytidbits/pseuds/ittybittytidbits
Summary: Life is good when you're a sugar baby with a daddy for every day of the week. They knew you. They knew each other. You knew they knew each other. They didn't know that each of them knew you.Or, it doesn't take eight billionaires to pay for school, shelter, and living expenses. But it sure helped. And it sure is nice to be spoiled.Another child of Chats With K. Unadulterated self-indulgent fluff. Super duper belated holiday present for bb.
Relationships: Erwin Smith/Reader, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein/Reader
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	1. Sunday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [K](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=K).



It was a better part of town, though under the current circumstances, you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or bad. 

At least it was clean. 

A high rise was surrounded by a couple of others - all exclusive apartments that probably cost more than your whole life - and a well-maintained front lawn that was more like a small park with manicured, perfectly even, green grass. A complementary bench - wrought iron, intended to blend with the surrounds - that nobody dared sit on at the risk of appearing plebian.

They checked visitors at the entrance, metal detectors and an x-ray scanner and sniffing dog and everything. Asked where you were headed. Politely, of course. Chattily. Just in case you happened to be a nondescript VIP. 

Penthouse, you replied, head down, staring at your shoes. Security would never mistake you for a nondescript VIP. 

You wondered if they could figure out what you were there for.

You missed the raised eyebrows and the exchanged looks. 

Who are you here to see?, they felt the need to press. 

Again, trembling inside with all your nerves, you missed the implication: Penthouse was the home of the biggest, most swashbuckling shit around these parts. Why are you here to see him?

You cleared your throat. Scuffed the tip of your cheap ballet flats against the marble floor. Mumbled, “Mr. Erwin Smith is expecting me.”

Security shrugged at each other. Flicked the wrist hanging at your floor-bound eye level. “Private elevator at the end of the lobby, to your left.”

Up you went.

On the mirrored walls of the gold-gilt car, your reflection stared back at you. Wide-eyed. The colours of your reluctant, unpractised makeup were stark against a face bloodless with terrified uncertainty. 

You bit your lips. Shut your eyes and hoped Mr. Erwin Smith, who you’d matched with on an app of all places, wasn’t an eccentric billionaire with strange kinks.

You also hoped he found you acceptable.

With a gentle stop, the elevator pinged “P” for penthouse. The doors slid away and you found yourself in a long, narrow hallway (marble floors all the way up here!) with a single door that was simultaneously wide, impressive, and complicated. You couldn’t even begin to figure out how to open it.

A brief search yielded a doorbell, which was answered by a tall, blond man.

“Mr. Smith?” you whispered, unable to look at him for more than a glance at a time, even as shocking blue eyes (the most notable thing you could pick out from his perfect face) trailed up and down your whole person. 

You fidgeted as he examined you. Drew your arms tight to your sides. Crossed them at the wrist as you tried not to twitch under the appraisal. Next to this god-like specimen of a human, you felt small. Musty. Filthy, even though you’d put on your best clothes.

Your borrowed best clothes. Because you had none of your own that could even come close to being good enough for a date. Let alone a…

The urge to tug down the hem of your micro mini was too much. Grasping the piece of fabric that you were sure was slowly, but surely, riding up your crotch, you yanked it down as you tore your eyes back to the floor. 

Mr. Smith stepped back. For a moment you thought you were being rejected, but then you realised the door was opening wider and he was saying, in a rich, low voice, “Come in.”

You did, and tried not to jump when the door you could not imagine how to open clicked shut behind you.

He left a trail of scent in his wake - cologne and the lingering expensive office smell - that did your nerves no favours. He was still in his day clothes, though he had shed his jacket and was leading you through the maze of his apartment in tailored shirtsleeves and slacks. 

A right turn and another opened door and you found yourself in a bedroom. This time, Mr. Smith stepped aside to let you in first, and as you stumbled through the threshold, began to undo the buttons of his shirt. 

You gaped at him.

He was unfazed, blue stare half-lidded and expectant, and all at once, the full force of your commitment washed over you like a cold, wet wave.

With mechanical motions, you stalked to the bed. Sat down rather hard at its foot. Kicked off your shoes. Gathered your thoughts, decided on a practised line, and raised your head to spew it at Mr. Smith.

He was already half naked and stalking towards you.

The words at the forefront of your brain evaporated as they dribbled down to your arid tongue.

Erwin Smith said nothing, but he looked like he had formed conclusions of his own as he knelt at your feet and, with large, warm hands, kneaded your bare knees.

“Shall I undress you?”

Then the same hot hands were dragging up your thighs, catching on the hem of your borrowed dress and taking them along in their upward sweep. In one smooth motion he peeled your dress over your head and dropped it carelessly in favour of exploring the rest of your body.

He pinched gently over the cups of your bra, the rest of his fingers splaying under your breasts and over your ribs. Nosed along your neck. Nibbled on your collarbone. 

You shivered, and you weren’t sure if it was still nerves or the compulsions of your physical body. 

He found the trough under your clavicle and with a quiet groan sucked an earnest, bruising kiss onto it as he reached behind you to unclasp your bra.

Your fingers curled into the sheets. Crushed them. Your back was ramrod straight.

“Higher up the bed. Lie down.” And as you scooted backwards, he stripped your panties down your hips. 

You couldn’t look at him, but everything else you heard clearly - the jingle of his belt buckle, the light shuffling thud as he discarded his trousers, and the practised little movements of a man undressing. 

He crawled over you and you parted your legs for him, still unable to tear your gaze from the dim ceiling which was made all the darker by the gently moving shadow of Mr. Erwin Smith sampling you from ear to decolletage, stroking your waist, the flat expanse of your stomach, and the bony hills of your hips as he nudged your thighs further apart and brushed up to the prize between them.

You winced. Tried not to let it show.

He didn’t notice. He was too lost in himself. Lost in the moment, looking only fleetingly at you before bending forward, head tilted to seal your mouth with his as he fondled at your groin.

You choked on a mewl. Trembled.

That he noticed. 

And he pulled back, strands of wheaten hair falling out of their place to hang over his creased forehead. You tore your eyes from the ceiling long enough to see his naked glory hovering above you. He was magnificent under the warm, dim light, and the arms braced on either side of you were twin columns of gold.

He looked at you askance. Thought a moment. Frowned a bit deeper, and rolled off.

The hammering in your chest eased, but with it, anxiety shot up to quivering heights. You dragged yourself upright, hands crossed over breasts, knees to chest. 

“Mr. Smith?” He was walking away, and your tiny question shivered in the blank air. “Sir?”

A light flicked on in another room. All was so quiet you heard it buzz with the stream of electricity. Some minutes later, Erwin Smith returned with a sweatshirt in hand. He was himself already dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

You eyed him from your huddle in the middle of his bed. 

He sat at the edge. Handed you the folded article of clothing. “Put this on.”

Simultaneously baffled, relieved, and anxious with the looming sense of a failed sexual excursion, you accepted his offer, unfurled the sweatshirt, and meekly tucked yourself into it. It was large enough to come to nearly your knees.

You sighed in their swathes, fingers curling and uncurling with satisfaction inside the too-long sleeves.

Erwin Smith was still staring at you. Scrutinizing you. “All right. Who put you up to this?”

You stopped your self-soothing motions. Tentatively met his narrowed eyes. “Sir?”

“Whose idea was it for you to…” he waved a hand the intended meaning of which both of you understood.

“Mine,” you whispered, ducking chin to chest. From where his sweater hung away, the mark he had earlier sucked on bloomed in the low light. You held the neckline closed over it. 

His stare was hard and piercing. His brow furrowed deeper. “Are you sure? If you’re in any trouble or need any help, I can call -”

You shook your head, hair swishing as you did. “No. No. It was my idea. Really.” 

It was your idea to whore yourself out. Your idea to do it through that app. 

All the extra folds of your borrowed sweater bunched in the fist over your sternum. In a small, embarrassed voice, “It’s my first time...doing this. I’m nervous. That’s all.”

And you tried to smile as you looked beseechingly up at him. “We can try again.” 

But this time, Erwin Smith shook his head. He stood up, apparently ready to be done with you. “It’s all right. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

The anxiety heretofore vibrating at the bottom of your consciousness reared up. He was going to go, was all you could think. The night was going to be over and you were going to end up having wasted the last chance you had.

In a rush of adrenaline, you scrambled across the bed, calling out to Mr. Smith, Sir, to please wait, to give you another chance.

You caught him by the forearm. He was turning away to leave, but paused to flick a glance at the little hands tightly clinging to his sleeve. 

“Please,” you begged, on the brink of tears, “I need this. Give me one more chance.”

He searched your face. Swivelled fully on his heel, extracted his arm from your grasp, and bent to your level, halting your desperate scrabbling with a grounding hand on each of your shoulders.

“What is this really about?”

You held him fast. And bit by bit, lips trembling as you spoke, it all came out: Rent. Exams week. Tuition. Rent money going to tuition so you could take the exams. Having a big, fat zero in your bank account and your grace period for rent payments expiring at the end of the week.

“I know it’s dumb,” you muttered, voice watery as you told your story to the piece of shadowed carpet over his shoulder, “to pay tuition instead of rent. To risk homelessness. But I’d already spent too much time and money getting through this semester that it would be a waste to throw it all away just because I can’t take my exams! Besides,” you sniffled preemptively, “I had it all figured out. Payday was just round the corner so I knew I’d be able to meet my rent payment when it came due…”

You swallowed.

“And when was that supposed to be?” His tone was still stern but he spoke noticeably softer now than he did when you met. 

You hesitated. 

The hands at your shoulders squeezed. 

“Three days ago,” you admitted in defeat. “But I lost one of my jobs so…”

“One of your jobs?” Vehement. Spitting disbelief.

You nodded.

“How many jobs do you have?”

You fidgeted. This was not a conversation you ever expected to have with any clients, much less your first one. But Erwin Smith was adamant, and he looked like he would not be letting you go before you answered all his questions. 

“Two: a P.A. one and a waitressing gig. And a seasonal one during the long summer break between semesters.”

“And in addition to all that, you thought you’d...earn a little extra at night.”

You winced. Sucked in a shallow breath and nodded. “I couldn’t find another job so quickly after I lost my P.A position, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be paid in time and enough to meet my rent deadline. So I…” 

Oh, but what were you ashamed of? It was no disgrace to want to live. People have done worse things to survive and humanity as a whole was not all the worse for it. You, too, could own up to your ploys for survival. You could take the pity of this man. What would it hurt but your nonexistent pride?

Against all screaming instinct, you lifted your head and stared him right in his turbulent ocean eyes. “I thought I’d make a quick buck. How hard can it be? Just lie down and take it. A few nights and a handful of men later, I’ll be able to pay my rent and have a bit to spare.”

You fisted your hands until they no longer trembled. They stilled, but not after shooting punts of ice up your arms and down your back until you were cold and shivering.

The grasp on your shoulders inched up until they settled on either side of the base of your neck. Erwin Smith smirked ironically. “If you expect to be able to make enough to pay rent after a ‘handful of men’, you ought to charge more.”

You gawped at him. 

He squeezed you almost affectionately. “Stay the night. Tuck yourself in. Do yourself a favour and try to get some real rest tonight.”

A gentle pat later, he was once again leaving, and you were once again rising to make him stay. “But I still have to earn -”

“I’ll pay you for your time,” he promised. “Just go to sleep.” And before you could argue any more, he switched on the dimmed bedside lamp, thumbed your chin, crossed the room, flicked off the lights, and saw himself out.

You stared after him for a long while, standing on one leg and kneeling on the bed with the other. You stared at the door, watching, waiting to see if he would return to finish what you set out to do tonight. 

Five minutes passed, and then ten. The door remained closed. Beyond it, you thought you heard the sounds of other activity - cabinets opening and closing, the tap running, appliances switching on. 

It was only when the muted drone of a television joined the fray that you realized Erwin Smith meant what he said. Slowly, dazedly, you lowered yourself onto the bed, squirmed under the sheets, and curled underneath them to stare at your unmoving shadow across the ceiling.

\---

You woke at the crack of dawn, habit compounded by the fear of overstaying your welcome. The dimmed lamp was still on. Everything else was dark stillness shrouded by blackout curtains and the silence of the apartment beyond your still-closed door.

Slipping out of bed, you fluffed the pillows and smoothed the sheets. Picked up the clothes Erwin had discarded the night before. You contemplated putting them on. Imagined sneaking out with nary a farewell. None so much as a thank you to this unexpected benefactor who allowed you one last night of comfort before you were, inevitably, thrown out to the curb.

The thought sat heavy. 

Dragging up the neck of Erwin’s sweater, you let your eyes close as you wallowed in the remembrance and the wholeness of him distilled in this single piece of cashmere, detergent, and cologne. It was like being underneath him all over again, only with all the sense of protection and none of the fears of uncertainty.

You walked yourself through your escape route: out through here, left down a short hall, out into his sprawling, open-plan kitchen-dining room-living space with that curving iron-and-glass staircase to the loft, then rightmost, past a corridor of walls and doors, then left again, to a warm, welcoming foyer, where you would open -

Ah. 

Your eyes blinked open. A spurt of hope rushed through you. 

But you could not leave without opening that front door. And you did not know how to open that front door. You would have to have Erwin let you out. While you were at it, you might as well do the decent thing and take a proper leave of him.

The prospect of seeing him again made your fingertips tingle and your heart rise to your throat.

Taking one last happy whiff of your borrowed sweater, you left last night’s clothes as they were (in a lumpy pile, at the foot of the bed) and skipped outside. If you were going to take your leave of him, you might as well demonstrate your gratefulness, too.

Dawn had broken beyond his floor-to-ceiling windows, leaking pink and yellow pigments into the open-plan first floor. And as you came to the end of the hall, you paused to take in the view - the minimalist white and grey interiors drenched in colour, all their metal parts shining amber, their glass sections pools of rainbow light. 

From this high, there were no skyscraper tops to blot out the dawn. There was nothing to obscure its admiration.

And yet the one person for whom all this was built - the reason this building was stacked so high, this room was built exactly around the belt of sunrise, the reason one whole wall was made of the clearest glass - turned his back on all of it. 

For there, bent over a laptop, fingers kneading temples on either side of a care-wrinkled forehead, was Erwin Smith, tense on a luxurious sofa, forsaking the glory of the sun.

“Good morning, Mr. Smith.”

He raised his head and for a moment frowned, as if trying to remember who you were and what you were doing in his house. Then the moment passed, he remembered, smoothed his brow, and stiffly pulled himself upright. His computer remained on his knees, the screen casting a sickly blue hue over his tired face.

“Slept well?” He tried to smile. As you moved towards him, you saw with more clarity the shadows underneath his eyes - not as blue as you saw last night. Not as bright as your giddiness remembered to you this morning - and the faint stubble on his cheeks and chin.

The thought suddenly struck you that Erwin Smith, who appeared so lofty and godly last night was, after all, human in the daylight.

For some strange reason, that realisation unleashed a whirl of pity in you.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

The coffee table was littered with newspapers, all opened to varying sections - Business, Finance, World News, Local News - stacked one on top of the other. Worries stacked upon worries, their paper weight an empty crystal glass, its bottom still stained reddish with the last dregs of liquor, and their neighbours neatly-labelled folders strewn like playing cards with intestines of official-looking documents spilling from their edges.

You tore your eyes away and back to Erwin Smith. So did he, and back to you. Smiled wanly at you.

“Help yourself to breakfast before you go. I’m afraid you’ll have to fix it yourself, though.” He shrugged at the mess of work all around. “There’s an envelope with your name on the foyer table. Remember to take it when you leave.”

It was the dawn of a Saturday. You wondered if he’d had any sleep at all.

Pity expanded in your chest. Fitted tight. Pushed against your ribcage. 

Squashing a strangled breath, you managed a, “Thank you. Can I make you some coffee?”

Both your gazes flew to the crystal glass. Erwin chuckled softly. 

“I’d appreciate that.”

His pantry was well-stocked; his kitchen outfitted with the latest appliances. Everything looked unused except for a bag of coffee and a professional-looking coffee maker. In no time at all you managed to get it going, and the aroma of freshly brewed caffeine awakened the crisp morning.

While the coffee was brewing, you made toast, scrambled eggs, and sizzled bacon and sausage links. By the time you were finished and bringing Erwin a plate of breakfast, he was looking a little more perked up, a lot amused, and plenty grateful. He even set aside his laptop and, as you handed him food and coffee, accidentally let slip,

“Thank you, darling.”

Both of you momentarily froze at the endearment. To save him the embarrassment, you chirped, “You’re welcome,” and settled at a corner of the sofa. For a while, the pair of you ate in ravenous silence. You were genuinely hungry - your last meal was yesterday’s slice of bread for breakfast - and you hadn’t had real food in so long. But Erwin’s hunger was…

“A home cooked meal is really something else,” he said around a mouthful of eggs and bacon. Already, he was looking more like himself. At least, as much of himself as you presumed he ordinarily was. A gulp of coffee later, his tired smile morphed into a boyish grin that he sent, with all unbridled satisfaction, your way.

The cherry tomato you had just bitten into nearly fell out of your mouth.

“The kitchen hasn’t been used in a while,” he confessed. “I think it’s glad for the action.”

You lowered your head, unable to help the wide smile as you sucked on the tines of your fork. Mumbled, “Thank you for letting me. It’s been a while since I last made anybody food. I miss it.”

“You live alone?” His fork clinked. Setting his empty plate aside, Erwin shifted to sit sideways, shoulder braced on the back of his sofa as he faced you squarely. 

You nodded. Took another bite of scrambled eggs.

“What about your family?”

“Back home.” Despite the gentleness of his tone, you couldn’t help feeling the beginning tendrils of prodding questions. And though your first instinct was to evade them all, you felt you at least owed it to him - who let you, a virtual stranger, stay overnight - to answer his questions. “I...I left home for Uni.”

“You’re putting yourself through it? By yourself?”

Another nod. A shy smile. “It’s not uncommon.”

“No,” he agreed, his tone coloured by the same gravity as last night. “You’ve really no one to help you?”

“No.” And - “I don’t dare. It’s a lot of ask of anyone.”

Erwin hummed in thought. Sat back and crossed his arms. Contemplated his high, high ceiling as you scraped the last bits of food from your plate.

Finally, his eyes roved from the ceiling to the far wall of the living room. There, the large TV was a blank void. The record player and the shelves of vinyl beside it were mute. His gaze travelled back to you. You hazarded a peek and saw only open curiosity.

“Today, I asked you for coffee. You came back with coffee and breakfast. Why?”

What a strange question to ask. You blinked. Lifted your head and cocked it. Surely the answer was obvious?

“You looked like you needed it.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up and suddenly your cheeks felt hot. Did he perhaps misinterpret that?

“I didn’t mean that you looked hungry -”

He snorted. Your eyes widened in alarm.

“No, I meant - I just wanted to say - You looked -” He looked overworked. He looked worn down. Worn out and at the end of his tether, like the whole world was bearing down on him and squeezing the last bit of life he could give. 

You bit your lip. 

“You looked like you could use a bit of loving.”

That silenced his amusement. He looked your way. Slowly. Deliberately, so you could see the ghosts of laughter still etched around his mouth. Eyebrows raised, “Loving,” he repeated.

You gulped. “Pampering?”

His mouth twitched wider. He indulged it. Let it spread into a whole grin. “First I was told it.”

Relief stuttered out of you. You might have coughed a laugh right along with it as your shoulders drooped and you brought your mug of coffee to your lips. “You ought to be told it more. Let yourself rest more.”

“And this from someone with two, three jobs and a full-time university course?”

You lifted a shoulder. Dropped it in a shrug. “Mine’s born out of necessity.”

“And mine isn’t?”

You gestured at his lavish apartment, too big and too quiet for one single person. Erwin shook his head. And though he smiled yet, you imagined it was one out of indulgence for your innocent worldview.

“It isn’t all about the money, you know.” He let his head fall against the back of his couch. “I light up entire cities -”

“I’m sure you do,” slithered cheekily out before you could feel mortified and stuff it back where it came from. But if anything, it only served to amuse him more.

“That’s an awful pick up line.”

“I’ll do better next time.”

You cracked each other your best, widest grins. The ice broke and the tension between you stretched and slackened. Erwin Smith didn’t feel like just a wealthy stranger anymore, and you could have sworn, after that moment, it seemed as if you’d known him for a thousand years.

“I run power plants,” he said, and neither of you were sure why you were beginning to talk to each other in depth about yourselves. You weren’t supposed to stay in each other’s lives for much longer than the fluke of last night - that galactic accident that caused your worlds to collide for what was supposed to only be a moment, and then no more. 

But Erwin’s tone invited the comfort of familiarity, and as you shifted to lean your head against the back of the sofa, one and a half feet away from him, facing him exactly, meeting him as he was and you as you were, you willingly stepped into it.

“My work lets me bring energy to backwater communities. I’ve brought clean, running water to families who no longer have to see their babies die of infection from filthy water. I raised entire industries. Turned dusty villages into modern cities. Given their struggling people jobs. Improved their standard of living.” 

He stared past you as he told his tale, as if he was seeing all over again those backwater communities, those dusty villages and no-long-dying babies. And the pride shone from him.

“It’s more than the money. Those people are why I do it.” Then he blinked and his eyes flickered away from his daydream and back to you, boring holes into you. “The worries are endless but the power plants are running and we are getting to the people who need us.”

Proud and more than a little care-worn.

You wanted to sidle up to him. To curl into a ball and wrap your arms around him as you tucked yourself under his chin. One of your hands strayed towards him. Reached across one and a half feet for him. Softly, 

“Who worries about you?”

Neither of you expected Erwin to return the gesture. His large, warm palm encompassed yours completely. And as you stared at your joined hands, he murmured,

“I’m not sure.”

Underneath his, your fingers inched into a fist. An awful, rash impulse bubbled up inside you. That great feeling in your chest - pity, compassion rising to action - ballooned once more, and as it railed to be spilt from your tongue, you blurted out,

“Will you let me worry about you?”

The vacuum of sound, of bated breath, exploded in a rush of white noise. Your heads snapped up. Gazes collided, surprised. Uncertain. Exhilarated.

Erwin’s grasp tightened over your fist. The beginnings of a teasing upcurve danced about his mouth.

“Are you saying you want to light up my life?”

You groaned, dragging your hand away to slap it over your eyes as he laughed. “That is a terrible pick up line!”

“It’s only a cousin to yours!”

Through your fingers, he was all open amusement leaning forward towards you. The lines on his forehead were gone; his eyes were narrowed in mirth.

“I’d like that,” he said. Quietly. Sincerely. “Having you around would brighten up this lonely place. How long do you intend to worry about me?”

You let your hand drop to his waiting palm. Let him squeeze it, cover it with his own, and hold it between both of his.

This time, when you felt the urge, you didn’t fight it. Shuffling on your knees, you threw yourself at him. Folded yourself up into the tightest ball that could fit under his chin and laid your forehead on his chest, right above his hammering heart as you held him as close to yourself as humanly possible. 

“For as long as you want me to.”

He returned your hug. Rested his chin on top of your head as he turned his face to the brightness outside and gave in to the weight of his joy.

Dawn had broken completely. Pink had dribbled into yellow; vanished.

Under the morning light, with his face all aglow, Erwin was himself the sun.

\---

“Really, darling, if you told me you liked Christmas this much, I’d have flown you somewhere nippy where it snows all year round and the towns look like Christmas villages,” Erwin prattled, tapping a chin as he contemplated the red-cheeked Elf on the Shelf tucked behind a glass jar labelled ‘flour’.

They - the flour and the elf - hadn’t been there until just recently when November and its cosy chill blanketed the land and kicked your long-dormant baking compulsion into high gear. 

And Erwin, whose tendency to spoil knew absolutely no bounds, was there for it. With open arms, he welcomed the smorgasboard of knick-knacks you dragged into the house - his house: first a single snowman cookie jar that you filled with all the freshly-baked cookie goodness he never knew he needed until they were right under his nose. 

Since its arrival, he communed often, and mostly pleasantly, with that snowman. They had only one (their worst) disagreement, which happened one pre-dawn night when a work-weary Erwin, craving something sweet (preferably freshly-baked, and preferably by his darling babygirl), shuffled into the kitchen, divested the snowman of its ceramic hat and found, to his chagrin, nothing more than crumbs in its porcelain belly. 

He grumbled, replaced the hat rather harshly on the grinning gentleman’s head and, not content, accused ruddy red-cheeks of eating more than his fair share of the cookies babygirl had left for him. For Daddy. Just so there was no confusion.

Over the next few days, Erwin refused to acknowledge his cookie jar. It was only when Sunday rolled around with you in tow for your weekly visit that his sullen mood lifted. And as if to appease him, you baked him a new batch of caramel pecan cookies that went straight into replenishing the cookie jar.

Needless to say, this prompted Erwin to at once settle his differences with the snowman.

With the festive cookie jar thus paving the way, the rest of your seasonal odds and ends paraded into Erwin’s home the instant Halloween was over. None of the comedically horrific decor you’d put up (to the surprise and great pleasure of the trick-or-treaters who, for the first time ever were allowed up to the penthouse floor to demand candy from its heretofore jealously private resident) even had a chance to make a dignified exit before they were bulldozed out of the way by wreaths and tinsel, snowmen and reindeer and Santa everything, and elves hidden around every nook and cranny. 

Erwin himself stumbled across one such fellow more than once, the most memorable of such experiences being the morning he found one knocked out with an empty beer bottle behind a stash of toilet paper.

He loved it. 

And now you were in the middle of another one of your baking frenzies, measuring out vanilla extract and drizzling it into your batter. “There’s no need to go so far away. I’m happy to wait for Christmas here.” You paused to beam at him. “Aren’t you, Daddy?”

He turned away from the flour, giving up looking for the requested cloves in favour of looking at you. Not that he would know what cloves were, anyway. Ever since he gave up his kitchen and pantry to you, he no longer recognized a great majority of the things in them. 

Besides, it was more entertaining to let you hunt for your ingredients yourself, especially if they happened to be located in a high kitchen cupboard. The moment you stood on your tippiest toes, he would be there, ready to catch you round the middle for a boost. Alternatively, he could play gentleman and hand you what you needed. Either way, he always got a kiss and the sweetest “Thank you, Daddy,” for his troubles.

More entertaining and much, much more rewarding indeed.

It was all he could do to croak, “I’ll wait anywhere. For Christmas. With you.” Closing the short distance between the counter and the kitchen island, he took you into his arms, ignoring quiet protests to “watch the batter!” in favour of pushing his face into the back of your head.

This was why he loved Sundays. On Mondays through Saturdays, the world demanded all of him. On Mondays through Saturdays, he was Erwin Smith, the man who quite literally powered the world; who dined with Presidents; whose responsibilities sometimes weighed too heavily for mere mortal shoulders.

But on Sundays, he was Daddy, and he need only answer to you. From the moment you walked through his doors, cheery and worry-free and worlds better than when he first found you, you were his and he was yours.

“What do you want for Christmas?” he suddenly asked, lips roaming your hair. Brushing handfuls of strands aside, he kissed a trail from the back to your ear to your nape - butterfly kisses that made you shiver.

“I want you to be happy,” you sighed, relaxing into his affection. “This Christmas, and the next, and forevermore.”

“Oh, my kitten.” His chin, day-old stubble and all, grazed the bare skin of your neck and you giggled, hunching at the prickle. “My sweet girl,” he practically groaned, kisses moving to nip down your jaw and up again to the hollow underneath your earlobe, “Tell Daddy what you want. Shall we go to Harry Winston’s? Or a trip somewhere? Or would you rather Daddy lend you his card so you can pick your own present?”

It was getting to be ridiculous, working while being showered with so much physical love. You were sure you were going to mess up your muffins. But Erwin was as content as could be and ultimately, that was the point of this exercise.

“I want you to be happy. That’s a big wish.”

“Yes, but it isn’t…” he paused for thought. “...selfish.”

“I thought you said you loved my unselfishness.” The batter was rich with spice and smelled exactly like Christmas. “Daddy, will you please grab that baking tray for me?”

“Certainly, darling.” One arm still wound around you and cheek pressed against the side of your neck, Erwin reached forward, retrieved what you asked, and returned to burrowing his chin deeper into your fluffy cable-knit sweater.

“Thank you.” For his efforts, and for his generosity. Your kiss landed on his temple with its tumble of soft blond hair and the scent of citrus shampoo. 

“On Christmas and on your birthday, I wish you were a little more selfish.” He squeezed you around the waist. “Think harder about your Christmas present, all right?”

You nodded, spooning batter into the lined tray. “What about you, Daddy? What would you like for Christmas?”

“You’re my Christmas present,” he murmured in your ear, face right next to yours as he watched you work. “My very best one.”

“That’s silly.” But you were smiling. Much too widely; too exuberantly. “We didn’t even meet anywhere near Christmas!”

“So?” In a burst of cheekiness, he kissed you on the base of your neck so violently that you squealed at the prickliness of his day-old stubble, catapulting bits of batter onto the pair of you and on the kitchen island as your shoulder flew up to shake him off.

“Daddy!”

There was batter on your nose and cheeks and on the hair falling all over his forehead. Erwin pulled away, caught your exasperated grin, and couldn’t help teasing in his lowest, most sinfully suggestive tones,

“You’ve made quite the mess, babygirl.”

“It’s your fault.” His face was mere inches from yours. You were much too comfortable.

Erwin hummed. “It is, isn’t it? Why don’t you let Daddy clean you up?” Before you could react, he swooped forward, pecking first each of your eyelids before licking the dollop off your nose and lightly sucking off the blotches from each of your cheeks.

“I think this batch will turn out perfect.”

“This recipe also calls for raw eggs.”

“So?” he blinked and you couldn’t help sighing at his impenetrable happiness. 

Erwin on Sundays was a completely different creature. It was as if he shed the whole wardrobe of his weekday worries at Saturday’s threshold and emerged on Sunday wearing only the lounge pants of happy-go-luckiness that he couldn’t put on any other day.

You loved the thought of this respite. And every Sunday you remembered all over again how and why you loved every bit of him - whether he was Erwin Smith or Daddy, whether he was bogged down with work and smiling a weak welcome at you from his office chair at midnight, surrounded by folders and folders of work, or whether he was like this: unshaven, hair all over the place and sticking out at some parts, his beautiful blue eyes hazy and half-lidded with your promise of comfort.

He was all yours.

With a content sigh, you snuggled against him as the pair of you settled back into the calm of baking. “Please don’t eat raw batter. I don’t want you to come down with a stomach ache.”

Holding you tighter, he nosed at your neck, pausing to breathe your perfume and to kiss you right on the earlobe, this time atop a diamond stud earring he didn’t get you and knew you wouldn’t buy for yourself. 

Busy with scraping the last dregs of batter and sprinkling handfuls of chocolate chip and cinnamon sugar on your creation, you failed to notice the sudden dampening of Erwin’s playful mirth.

“Darling,” he said, tone still light though with an undercurrent of unease that completely flew over your head, “if I made myself sick, would you come for me?”

“Of course,” you chirped without missing a beat. “I wish you wouldn’t, though.”

“Of course,” he echoed, hollowly. And then much softer, almost like it was an escaped thought you weren’t meant to hear, “I wouldn’t want to take up all your time.”

Your hands stilled. You stiffened in his grasp. Moved only your head and even then only to lean it against his as he rubbed up and down your side, less suggestive and more self-soothing.

“Daddy? What’s the matter?”

He shook his head. “Nothing, darling. Just an old man being an old man.” 

Except you knew better than that. Folding your hands - sugar- and chocolate-crusted and all - over his forearms, “I’ll always come when you need me. When you want me. For anything at all. At any time of day or night. The same way you were there for me, I’ll be here for you.”

Knuckles brushed over your cheekbones. Your eyes fluttered shut as you pressed your lips to the back of his fingers. 

“You know that’s not the reason I did what I did -”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to enslave yourself out of a sense of gratefulness to me.”

“I’m not.” Turning around, you hooked your arms around his neck. Erwin stumbled into you, pushing you back until the edge of the kitchen island dug into your spine. “I’m grateful anyway.”

He leaned down. Gently touched your lips with his. Tasted tiny bits of you and let himself be tasted in turn, over and over until your mouths were tingling and spit slick. Only then did the pair of you pull back with quiet gasps, foreheads pressed together.

“Thank you, darling.” It was but a whisper. His linked hands slid from under your shoulder blades to the small of your back as he tugged your hips flush against his. “You’ve done for me much more than I deserve.”

“Really.” You stole a kiss.

His lips curled up. You were nose to nose. “Really. For instance, I haven’t had Christmas decor at my place since I moved away for college.”

“Tragic.” And you exploded in giggles as he returned the favour on the tip of your nose.

“My house has never looked so lived in, either -”

“- My pleasure.”

Another kiss. A round of full, throaty laughter.

“- and I’ve never been so spoiled for midnight snacks.”

“I’m doing what I can to keep you, after all.”

He practically bent you backwards in an earnest display of his appreciation.

“Where would I be without you?”

“Still here. Just without all the cookies and treats.”

With that, he crushed you to himself, relishing your squeak of surprise as he held you with all he had. Without you, he would still be here - here, on a plane of existence where he lived everyday like it was a weekday, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Here, with an apartment much too large and too cold for one person, occupied only when he needed a place to shower and sleep and fuck away the drudgeries of the work day. 

But now that he’d had better - now that he’d tasted the home you brought with you every Sunday and marinated into his life for good - Erwin realised how unbearable the ‘here’ was before there was you, and knew if he were to ever have a choice, he would choose to never, never go back to it.

It was only later, when you were snuggled together on the couch under a plush blanket, wine at hand and Casablanca spooling on the large TV, that the words found their way out of his mouth,

“Babygirl, thank you for giving me a home.”

You twisted around to look up at him. “I should be the one saying that.” And you would have meant it quite literally.

When you were at the brink of homelessness, reduced to nearly living on the streets, Erwin took you in - first for one night, and then for another so that you woke up to the first worry-free Sunday of your young life. And when it had been time to leave, he paid you handsomely for your time, plus a ‘bonus for staying over two nights’. That money had been enough to cover that month’s rent with a little bit left over. He saw you home, made plans to meet again, and made you promise to tell Daddy if you needed anything. Anything at all.

“This is your second job,” he said the next Sunday you got together when he learned about your daily routine more minutely. “You don’t need to wear yourself out anymore.”

So in return you devoted yourself to him. Every single thing about him, you committed to memory until you knew his likes and dislikes by heart, could recite his schedule off the top of your head, and could hand him whatever he needed a split second after he began to reach for it.

“Your inner P.A. is showing,” he’d tease as he thanked you with the forehead kiss you had come to expect - and to relish as your favourite reward. “There’s no need to. You’re not my assistant. You’re my kitten, to love and to spoil.”

And every single time, you’d wrap your arms around him and tilt your face up to catch his mouth. “I want to do it anyway.” More kisses, please, Daddy. More love. 

He always indulged you.

Then one Friday afternoon just as you finished classes and were on the way to the bus stop, a red-haired man in a suit accosted you outside campus. His name was Floch, he said. He’d also just been leaning against a shiny black car, all casual-like, and just as nonchalantly, handed you a plain white, unmarked envelope.

“Mr. Smith wanted to make sure you received it,” he explained. And after giving you a surreptitious, curious once-over, nodded and drove away. 

You thought maybe Erwin had bagged some time off and sent over instructions for the weekend. Instead, you opened the envelope to find a single key in a keychain with a printed address, and a note in Erwin’s own hand -

_I think it’s time you had a place to call your own. Welcome home._

Now, as Rick Blaine raised his drink for the nth time and recited those famous words, _Here’s looking at you, kid_ , you sat up and cupped Erwin’s face. “You’ve done so much for me.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile and he reached up to smooth hair away from your face. “That was my luckiest night.”

You beamed back. Burrowed into his motions. “Why did you? Let me stay, I mean?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

“I was a stranger. I could have robbed you of everything -”

An eyebrow shot up. “What would you have carried off? The lampshade?” The hand at your hair slid down. Rested on the back of your neck. “I knew who you were, darling. The moment I saw you I could tell the kind of person you were. And there was nothing in this house more valuable than you.”

You swallowed.

“I will always be grateful for that night. And I would never forgive myself if I had let it turn out any differently.”

He meant, if he had taken you up on the offer you were obviously not ready to make and if he had, under any circumstances, let you go.

Since then, Erwin had not made any attempt to touch you in ways other than innocently. You never asked and he never brought it up even though you fully expected him to want to collect his due some day and had mentally prepared yourself for it. 

But the day never came, and so many days passed after that until it became an unspoken agreement that he would never ask you to lie with him in exchange for his kindness. 

“What do you get out of this?” you finally asked in between the kisses he sat up to shower upon you. As grateful as you were, you couldn’t help feeling as if he was getting the short end of some stick.

“I get you.”

“But what satisfaction -”

“You,” he said again, and this time you felt his smile widen against your skin, “right here in my arms.”

“I meant what inner human drive -”

“The Daddy Drive.”

“Oh, Daddy, be serious!”

He laughed. Hugged you and fell back with you onto the mounds of Christmas cushions and the Santa blanket strewn above it as his hands roved all over your back and his laughter quieted into sincerity. “I get the satisfaction of knowing you’re well. I get the happiness of keeping you safe from the ugliness of the world.” 

Arms tightened around you. Your fingertips - regularly manicured for the first time in your life - dug into his soft sweater. His voice, though gone soft, retained a protective edge.

“You’re so sweet and so good. I don’t want the world to take that from you before you’ve even begun to live.”

The rest of Casablanca played out while the pair of you slouched together on the couch - Erwin stretched over the length of it and you stretched over the length of him. All the heavy conversation having been got out of the way, you were so relaxed you nearly missed his murmured, 

“Darling, have the muffins maybe burnt? It’s been a while and I think we missed the timer.”

The movie was coming to an end. Yawning your satisfaction, you lifted your head and sniffed the air. 

“I don’t think so. Nothing smells burnt.”

“Come to think of it, nothing smells cooked, either.”

Frowning, you rolled off him, plodded to the kitchen, and instantly groaned. 

“Kitten?” Followed by the shuffle of slippers and, a moment later, Erwin’s amused snort from right beside you. “Happens to the best of us.”

You grumbled unintelligibly behind your hands. 

“What’s that? You think I am extremely distracting? Thank you.”

“Nooooo.”

“Look at the bright side: forgetting to bake it is better than burning it!”

“You’re not helping!”

Sliding an arm around your waist, he pulled you close. “It’s really not a problem. I like raw batter, remember? Just like sushi!”

“Daddy! It’s not the same thing!”

He burst out in laughter then, the sound round and rich and ringing throughout his Christmassy home as he coaxed your hands from your face and teased you until your cheeks were red. Then he couldn’t help picking you up in a bear hug and twirling you round and round the kitchen. 

This was why he loved Sundays.

\---

“My baby and I celebrated Christmas early last week.” 

On Saturdays, the lads got together.

There were eight of them - a mismatched group sharing only the common attribute of wealth and good looks - and every Saturday, they got together to partake of a common activity that ranged from genteel to boyishly asinine.

This Saturday, they partook of a genteel activity under asinine circumstances: golf at the country club in short-sleeved shirts, light jackets, and sunglasses, all under the frosty late-autumn-early-winter-heralding-Christmas glare.

It was Erwin’s idea, though why exactly it was so remained a mystery. Golf was not amongst his many talents, and he never failed to score dismally in it. 

Erwin never minded, though, and today, he minded even less.

Today, his happiness glared as brightly as the cold winter sun, wholly unperturbed by the fact that he had just whacked his golf ball in a beautiful U-turn straight into a copse of balding, cottony trees.

He had the gall to look celebratory at the rare course his ball took and sucked in a lungful of frigid air, chest puffing out like he’d just sunk a hole-in-one.

“She decorated the place - mistletoe and Elves on the Shelf and string lights and wreaths and everything. Then we baked muffins and kissed while we watched Casablanca.”

“How domestic,” Levi retorted. As a man who prided himself on his refined tastes, he was less than impressed with Erwin’s idea of a wonderful Christmas. And now, as the next up to tee, he strode past the man himself with a curt kind of familiarity that made the other laugh.

“You’re jealous, Levi. Admit it.”

He snorted. “Jealous? Of what? The cheap trinkets cluttering your house?” Lining up his club, Levi drew back and then sent his ball flying across the green with a satisfying _thwack_. The lads ooh’ed in appreciation and the caddies quietly clapped. Levi nodded acknowledgement and fell back beside Erwin as Reiner Braun took up position.

“You ought to drop by sometime,” Erwin replied, all mildness as he handed his abused club to his caddy. “See the house. See my baby. You’ll be impressed. There’s no one like her.”

“Right.” In a tone that heavily implied a rather violent rolling of the eyes.

“She comes over on Sundays.”

“Sunday is my busiest day.”

“You just don’t want to admit defeat.”

“I wasn’t aware this was a contest.”

At the word ‘contest’, Jean Kirschtein popped up between them. “What’s this about a contest?”

Levi jabbed a thumb in Erwin’s direction. “Blondie here thinks his sugar baby’s the best thing since toilet paper.”

Jean snorted.

“Levi!” Erwin looked appalled. “Don’t be rude.” To Jean, “She’s great. The best, I might even say. So thoughtful. You know, she learned to cook because I off-handedly mentioned craving sweets at midnight on busy days…”

Levi and Jean exchanged looks, then shook their heads. Most everyone had gotten a turn already and their little group restarted their meandering along the course. Trotting together and otherwise unoccupied, the other lads decided that the best entertainment would be to listen - and to weigh in - on Erwin’s sugar baby.

“She’s trying to kill you,” Zeke pronounced, a judgment which Levi for once agreed with. “For such an old man, you shouldn’t be stuffing yourself with so many sweets.” And as if to prove his point, he tapped Erwin’s - relatively firm - middle. “You’re getting paunchy in the gut.”

Bertholdt tried to hide a smile. Reiner threw his head back and laughed without any reservation whatsoever. 

“Can’t argue with that! My baby certainly loves me so she feeds me vegetables all the time!”

“She must be trying to starve you,” Bertholdt put in. “You hate vegetables.”

“Nah.” Reiner shook his head, his spikes of blond hair shining under the sun. “She loves me too much. Started making `em the way I like `em.”

“Whipped,” Jean muttered.

“In short,” Levi rounded on Erwin in conclusion, “your sugar baby’s taking advantage of your deplorable lack of self-control to give you diabetes so you’ll die early and leave everything to her.”

“What a horrible thing to think of anyone.” And sunshiny Erwin deflated a little at the slanderous imputation. “I’m sure that’s not what my baby means to do at all. She just wants to make me happy.”

“That’s what they all say,” Zeke remarked, which was met with several nods and murmurs of agreement. “Except my baby, of course.” Again, nods and acquiescence.

Exasperated, Erwin stalked up the next knoll, leaving all the other lads behind. “Say what you like. My baby and I are going to keep doing what we do and I am going to keep enjoying her cooking -”

“Probably tastes like cardboard,” Jean muttered loud enough to be heard even over the relative distance. Marco shushed him with a hissed, “Play nice!” and Erwin looked over his shoulder to give the younger man a stink eye. And just to be petty, he declared,

“My baby is the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”

“I’m sure she could say the same of you.”

He beamed. “Thank you, Levi. I’m glad someone understands -”

“It’s to be expected. You bought her a fucking luxury apartment.”

Erwin made a dismissive sound. Waved a hand for added effect. “It’s really just a modest two-bedroom in a nicer part of town.”

“You mean in the highbrow part of town.”

“It’s close to her school. She attends one of the top universities, you know.”

“On your scholarship.”

“Oh, no.” They’d come to the crest of the course and finally, Erwin paused to let his naysayers catch up. With no small amount of glee, “Once my baby wasn’t working herself to the bone and could actually study properly, she earned her scholarship right back. Full tuition, too!”

The lads milled around, game forgotten in favour of gossiping.

“My baby is very, very smart. So there.”

“This one’s whipped, too,” Jean muttered, this time with a rueful shake of the head.

“You spoil her too much.” It was a point Levi refused to surrender.

“Only as much as she deserves.”

“For god’s sake, Erwin. You don’t even live in the highbrow part of town!”

“Because it’s far from my office!” Said Erwin cried out defensively. “I don’t like long commutes. Which reminds me. She comes to surprise me, too -”

“Didn’t you say,” Bertholdt piped up, suddenly remembering how Erwin once mentioned that the apartment he bought his baby was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Hoover family’s luxury shopping malls, “that you picked your baby’s place because it was close to the malls? So you could take her shopping when she had to be spoiled?”

Levi’s eyebrows were all the way up his forehead.

Seven pairs of eyes swivelled towards Erwin. “No,” he croaked, “I think you misheard.” But the lads would not be fooled and they heckled him until he finally admitted, “It’s only because she really, really deserves it.” And his shoulders slumped as he sighed, “After all, she made my house a home.”

That silenced the lads. One way or another, they felt this sentiment as acutely as Erwin did, though none would admit to it - at least, not in such sappy terms. It was only recently that they all stumbled upon their own darlings, after all, one after the other, starting with Erwin, and none of them could deny that their own sugar babies had changed their lives for the better.

Much, much better.

As they stood together in contemplation of the wonder of sugar babies (specifically, their own), Mike Zacharias mused quite out of nowhere,

“Last week, I ran into my baby. She was shopping for Christmas things. Guess the season’s finally upon us.”

Then someone - most probably Jean - had to sneer about how their Christmas with their baby was going to be the best of the best because their baby was The Best. This prompted another round of railing protestations that resulted in the huddle breaking up and someone else - Zeke - demanding in the heat of the moment if anyone wanted to bet on it.

Everyone did. Cheque books were fished out. The conversation grew more vehement, the arguments more ridiculous, and the bets even more outrageous. Finally, the lads, as one, marched back across the golf course, still squabbling, to smooth out the details of their wager in the club house.

Nobody won at golf that Saturday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Rick Blaine - name of the leading man in Casablanca and the originator of "Here's looking at you, kid." (I didn't know until I watched the movie, either. haha)
> 
> This plot bunny was hatched sometime in mid-December last year while K and I were thirsting over the snk daddies. She mentioned BP's physical hoe of a reader and wondered about an intimacy hoe reader. Things went out of hand pretty fast after that. x'D So if you enjoyed this, please remember to thank her, too. This fic would not be here if it weren't for her.
> 
> Happy birth month and birth week, B! May the fluff be with you! <3
> 
> P.S. For the interested/curious, I post a moodboard on [my tumblr](https://teenytinymei.tumblr.com/) (tagged DaD) exactly one week before the next chapter updates.


	2. Monday 1/2

Main street. Monday, six p.m. 

The queue ran down the length of the block and you counted yourself lucky to be somewhere in the middle of it. All around your umbrella chamber echoed the pitter-patter of fat raindrops. 

You shifted; hoisted your paper bag of takeout higher up your arms. Hoped it’d stay warm until you made it to Erwin’s office.

The long story of today - of that evening - began when Erwin insisted (gently) that you needn’t wear yourself out working so many jobs anymore. He was adamant that he was a whole job unto himself, and one that paid well, to boot.

You had to make time for the important things in life, he said, such as education. On that last bit, he refused to compromise. So you quit your diner waitressing gig and chose to keep only one other part-time job at a chain bookstore. 

Daddy approved, and along with a pat on the head said something like, “Now you’ll be able to fill the quiet hours studying. Or relaxing.”

You figured he misunderstood. You weren’t hanging about a library. You were working, and at a place where the staff were always busy. 

Yet curiously, Daddy turned out to be right. You did find yourself with plenty of lull hours, which you spent huddled between cardboard cartons, catching up on lectures and readings. 

For once in your life, you were left with more free time than you knew what to do with outside of school and work. 

When you’d run the gamut of bopping to pop music while carting laundry through your apartment, moonwalking with your vacuum cleaner, rocking out with sudsy spatulas over the kitchen sink, catching up on lost sleep, and soaking in the tub until the bubbles were flattened and you were pruny, the old restlessness reared its head and began to crave to apply itself to productive work.

So you thought and thought, and at the close of a particularly disastrous session of self-taught yoga, inspiration of the most obvious kind hit you.

You were going to take Daddying seriously.

In hindsight, you realised that you’d only been doing the bare minimum for Erwin, showing up when asked and trying to be as pleasant as humanly possible. You never tried to figure out how to be a better baby darling. 

It was deplorable. For the sake of Erwin’s infinite patience and otherworldly kindness, you resolved to do better.

So the next time you visited him at the office, you arrived with a gameplan to cosy up to his secretary. As a former P.A. yourself, you learned very early on that secretaries and personal assistants were treasure troves of information just waiting to be mined. 

Erwin’s secretary turned out to be the same person who handed you the keys to your new apartment that one time. Floch Forster was a few years older than you, obsessively devoted to his master, and wise to your schemes.

He shut down probing conversations faster than you could blink, gave you the dirtiest looks (behind Erwin’s back, when nobody else was watching), refused to say more than the bare minimum, and was above all manner of bribery. 

It took the longest time, warm acquaintance with Erwin’s other subordinates, and obvious affection from the man himself, for Floch to come around. But when it became clear to him that you were not a corporate spy out to lynch Erwin or his company, and when saw how important Erwin was to you and vice versa, he willingly became the perfect conspirator.

From him you learned that when a new power plant was in the works, no matter the size and the location, Erwin stayed up way too long in and out of the office. This latter fact Floch surmised because the boss man (or “Commander” as he preferred to refer to Erwin in private, complete with a proud puffing of the cheeks) looked like he didn’t get any sleep when he showed up for work the next morning.

Erwin was also, you were told, a right capital boss who never raised his voice and who liked to personally make a tour of the departments. His favourite was Engineering, where he always got a thrill out of crawling into finicky machinery, suit and all, to fix what his senior engineers could not.

But there were also things you knew about Erwin that Floch did not - and did not have to - know. 

For instance, you were the only one who knew that Erwin’s favourite request was for you to stay over on Sunday nights so you could cuddle up in bed with him and wake on a Monday morning just as he got out of the shower. Then he’d sit on your side of the bed, buttoning up his shirt as the two of you talked over coffee that he was proud to brew by himself instead of having his P.A. pick up en route to the office.

After he taught you how to tie the Windsor knot, you’d slip out of bed after Monday morning coffee and under the early sunlight drifting through his enormous bedroom window, you’d do up his tie for him. And when he had to go, you’d walk him to the foyer where he’d pick you up in the hugest goodbye hug as you saw him off to work.

Erwin lived for it. Said he always had a good week when his Mondays started out like that.

Eventually, you and Floch hit upon the one thing both of you knew about Erwin in and out of the office: the man had a massive sweet tooth. Floch refused to divulge his boss’ favourite patisserie, and lorded this knowledge over you for weeks on end. It wasn’t until he desperately needed his nth cup of that super-customized coffee off the super-secret menu of only you-knew-where, that he caved.

Erwin’s favourite pastry shop was the whoppingly luxurious Rosé along main street. 

In exchange for the name of the cafe and the name of the super-secret super-customized coffee to which you might not-so-accidentally have gotten him addicted, a grateful Floch also disclosed that tis’ the season for simultaneous power plant building in no less than three continents.

Thus armed with this knowledge, you innocently asked if you could drop by Daddy’s office with dinner and dessert.

He called you his heaven-sent.

You smacked Floch an under-hand high-five and promised to save him a pastry.

That was Friday, last week.

Today, you were only just finding out that Rosé was Instagrammable, wildly patronized, and closed at seven.

It was currently forty-five minutes to closing and you’d been standing in line for fifteen minutes.

The rain pattered on. Mercifully, the line jumped one or two paces forward, and in another ten or so minutes, you were finally allowed inside the warm, pastel paradise that was Rosé.

At this time, it was populated mostly by end-of-the-workday shoppers looking to treat themselves on the way home. The straw baskets lining the shelves were bare except for brioche crumbs on their white linens, and the only things left up for grabs were the rainbow array of sweets inside the refrigerated counter. And those were selling out by the minute.

You made a beeline for them with only one thing on your mind: Floch’s hot, conspiratorial breath as he whispered into your ear,

“Commander loves mille-feuille.”

It’d taken you five tries before he deemed you worthy of pronouncing the name of the sacred pastry and even then, you’d had to Google the darn thing (two tries, all spelled wrong until it struck you to do an audio search - such belated genius!) to understand what was so special about puff pastry, dollops of cream, and raspberries.

Plenty, apparently.

And Rosé’s take on it was much more so.

Of course you had to get it for Erwin.

The problem was, you couldn’t find it. You marched up and down the length of the nearly wall-to-wall display counter but could not find the pink-and-white creation that Google said was Rosé’s bestseller.

Anyone would think they’d stock more of a bestseller, really.

You were beginning to wonder if perhaps you’d understood wrong, or searched wrong, when an amused “They’re going to run out if you don’t make up your mind soon, you know,” had you whipping your head up and away from the dizzying parade of napoleons, fruit tarts, cream puffs, cannoli, eclairs, macarons, miniature cheesecakes, clafoutis, and cream horns, straight into the twinkling eyes of a young chef casually leaning on the countertop as he brushed his hair away from his face.

He had no nametag on and, unlike his colleagues, who were all hands on deck ringing up purchases and boxing up the prettiest creations, looked like he had all the time in the world to be dallying with you. 

“What’re you looking for?”

“Um.” You licked your lips. The paper bag in your arms crinkled as you summoned Floch’s pronunciation lessons and his snapping  _ loosen your tongue! _ “I’m looking for...mille-feuille. The raspberry chocolate kind.”

Dark blond brows shot up. “Mille-feuilles sell out by mid-morning. Unless you want to riot with the crowd, you need to make a reservation for them.”

Your face fell so hard you felt it. 

The chef shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, missie. Tough luck.”

Sighing, you looked longingly back at the display cases, which were opened and shut an alarming number of times in five minutes, each time leaving less and less pastries available. “I was hoping to get them for a friend. Now there isn’t even enough of each to make a box.”

He followed your gaze, head cocked. “You said you were buying for a friend?”

You nodded. “Rosé is his favourite. And because it’s him, it has to be extra special.”

“An extra-special friend?”

“You might say that.”

He wrinkled his nose in thought, then blew out a huge breath and shoved off the countertop. “All right! Tell you what: I’ll make you up a box of samplers. Wrap it up great with a ribbon and everything.” He winked. “Nobody has to know you bought your sweets late.”

“You’d do that?”

He was already assembling a box - light pink - and stuffing it quite generously with a rainbow assortment of treats. “For you, yeah. Because I don’t like seeing pretty girls cry.” And he looked up right at the moment a shy smile broke across your face.

“I wasn’t going to cry over a box of pastries.”

“Yeah, right.” He grinned at you and at your laden arms, catching you red-handed trying to stuff your paper bag of food into your jacket. 

You blushed. Dug your chin into your scarf. Fidgeted under his scrutiny and failed to resist the urge to scuff the tip of your shoes against the floor. Winced when you remembered that this was a nice pair of shoes and nothing like the beat-up sneakers you used to frequent.

He noticed it all. 

You cleared your throat. Lamely, “I’m trying to keep them warm for as long as possible.”

“That special of a friend, huh?”

“Yes.” Barely above a whisper.

With a practised motion, he settled the last delicate macaron, sealed the package shut, tied it up with a lavender bow, and pushed it over the top of the counter at you. “There. You’re all set.”

You hesitated. “Shouldn’t I bring this to the register?”

“Nah.” Waving a dismissive hand, he glanced at the still-buzzing checkout and caught the eye of another chef - dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a smattering of adorable freckles across his nose and cheekbones - whose glance flickered towards you before landing, just as briefly, on the box of pastries still waiting at the top of the counter. 

This second chef smirked, nodded almost imperceptibly, and quietly returned to supervising the counter.

“See?” The first - blond, mischievously handsome - chef nudged his offering towards you. “It’s on the house.”

“But -”

“It’s our good deed of the day. Call it a raffle win.”

“But I haven’t got a raffle ticket.”

“Sweetheart,” he said, tone turning stern long enough for you to straighten to attention, “It’s fine. Take it as a gift. To encourage you to come back.”

A bit more heartened by that, you accepted the treats and tripped over your thanks, which were all promptly waved away.

“Just say you’ll be back.”

“I will! I definitely will!”

A slow, easy grin stretched across his mouth and he slouched back over the countertop, chin on folded arms. “When you do, I’ll be sure to have mille-feuille on hand. Chocolate raspberry, just for you.”

You pushed out of Rosé with a pep in your step and the bell over its door tinkling. That was the first time today either of the nametag-less bakers noticed it ring. 

Outside on the stoop, framed by the pale turquoise panes, you fumbled with your umbrella, dinner still halfway inside one of the folds of your jacket and Rosé’s dainty bag hanging from the elbow of your free arm.

“Nice girl,” the dark-haired chef said, sauntering over to stand beside his partner. They watched you right yourself then splash down the street, skipping with joy over your stroke of good luck.

Both men had to smile.

“Like her?” The blond was tight seriousness. He remained staring at the stoop, now empty of you, now filled and vacated in rapid succession by the stream of nameless, faceless customers. He could still see you in his mind’s eyes - wellies, soft shirt tucked into dark jeans, jacket, and the cuddly scarf wound over it hiding nearly half your adorable face.

He wanted to see more.

Fortunately, so did his partner, who chuckled, “Oh, yes.”

“When do you think she’ll come back?”

“I don’t know.” Honestly. Consolingly, as one hand drifted to his shoulder and gently began to knead. “But soon, I hope.”

“Do you think she’ll come back?” At that, the blond straightened. He stood much taller than his freckled counterpart, although the perturbed uncertainty all over his face made him seem like a little child. 

The hand at his shoulder slid down to rest around his waist as the other tugged him closer to gently knock their heads together.

“She will.”

\---

And you did.

You returned the following day, immediately after pulling the most successful surprise to date. (You counted success in the length of time you could keep Erwin from his work for a well-deserved break. And last night’s Rosé box lit him up like a kid on his birthday. He promptly forgot about work, tucked into dinner without a squeak of protest, and spent the rest of the night with you on his lap, head held to his shoulder as he revelled in the surprising comfort of his office chair. Monumental success, in your book.)

Pink and purple bouquet in hand to match Rosé’s theme colours, you traipsed up to the patisserie at ten o’clock on a sunshiny morning, right when they opened.

The girl manning the counter - nametag Sasha - looked a tad confused by your business.

“You’d rather...not have a pastry?” She repeated, asking like the very idea was a national tragedy. Her hungry gaze roved down the long, refrigerated dessert counter under her obvious custody, and she licked her lips regretfully.

“Not today, sorry,” you winced, already hating the disappointment on her face that you knew you put there. Settling the flowers by the register, “I just dropped by to say thank you to those two chefs last night.”

Sasha blinked. “Which two chefs? I’ve got ten in the kitchen. Do you want a line up?”

“No!” you gasped, frantically waving your hands. “No, I don’t want to interrupt! If you could, uh, hand this over to them, I’ll be really, really grateful!”

She picked up the bouquet; cradled them in the crook of her arm. You followed her movements, internally sighing a little as you imagined what it would look like in the arms of either one of those two immensely kind chefs. You hoped they would like it. You wished you could see their faces.

“You’re going to have to give me their names.”

Snapping out of your reverie, you stared at Sasha and stupidly realised, “...I didn’t get their names.” But you tried to describe both men as best as you could - blond and brunette, and the prettiest hazel eyes. So, so nice. And both so tall!

Sasha frowned. You gathered that Rosé must employ plenty of tall, hazel-eyed blond and brunette bakers in its kitchen, thought some more, and -

“Ah! Freckles!”

“Freckles!” Sasha yelled back, her epiphany so loud you jumped in your shoes. “Marco! And Jean!” Then, like a star-struck fool, she went on a lengthy lecture about Jean Kirschtein and Marco Bodt (at least now you knew their names) and how and why they were her idols; how honoured she was to be working in the same space and breathing the same air as these two geniuses who created not only Rosé but a gigantic baking empire besides that. 

“A business about food! Living your whole life  _ for food _ ! Imagine that!”

Indeed. But you had other concerns. And presumptuous though it may have been after knowing the identities of those two apparently very important people, you couldn’t help asking, “Are they here?”

Sasha paused mid-gush. “No. They’re only here on Mondays.”

“Oh.” Of course. You deflated a little, feeling just a smidge like the silly schoolgirl you were. The bouquet you were so proud of this morning now seemed meagre and inadequate, and you began to wish you hadn’t bothered. Began to wish you could take back this whole morning -

“Don’t feel bad!” As if reading your thoughts, Sasha reached over to pat your arm. “I’ll pass on the message. Jean and Marco will appreciate this for sure!”

“For sure,” you echoed, and couldn’t help giving her an encouraged little smile. “Thank you, Sasha. I’ll leave it to you.”

She gave you a playful little salute. “Sure you don’t want a pastry?”

“Another time. I have to get to class.”

“Come back soon!” Like Jean said.

“I will.” But not as enthusiastically as when you promised him. 

You left Rosé a little less chipper than you did last night. Sasha watched until you plodded past the rightmost panes of the pale turquoise French doors; watched until one of her colleagues, already flour-dusted and butter-smeared so early in the morning, stumbled out into the empty shop front.

Nametag: Connie asked about the flowers. Checked the pristine display out of habit and let his eyes bug out in disbelief when he saw they hadn’t made a sale.

“Who was that?” he had to ask. “Lost tourist?”

Sasha shook her head. “Came to ask about Jean and Marco.” She repeated your conversation to Connie and told him all about the girl who came by just to say thank you - look, isn’t this sweet? Isn’t it awfully thoughtful? It goes with the shop’s colours, too! And all all over a box of pastries!

“You doofus!” Connie cried out, hands flying to clutch at his head when he’d heard enough of the tale. “That’s the person Jean and Marco were telling you to watch out for! She’s the one Jean said to save a raspberry mille-feuille for whenever she came back!” And he scrubbed his head to the tune of a very dramatic sort of wail.

Sasha merely raised her shoulders in a half shrug. “Oops?”

Connie groaned. “Did you at least get her name?”

“No.”

“Number?”

“Nope!”

“Sasha! How could you!”

“But -” she pumped an arm into the air to make a point, realized from Connie’s horrified stare that she’d been swinging the precious bouquet around, and quickly cradled it again with a gentle pet and a tumbling thread of giggles, “I did ask if she’ll be back and she said yes.”

“Oh, good. Did she say when?”

“Nope!”

Connie raised his face up and muttered for mercy to the high heavens. 

“If she doesn’t come back by the end of the day, can I have her mille-feuille?”

“Sasha!”

\---

She’ll be back, Marco reassured him at the close of yet another Monday night spent locking up without you ever darkening the threshold of Rosé’s Main Street shop.

At first, Jean held on to the promise in Marco’s voice, but the more Mondays passed, the less hopeful he became, until he began to worry that maybe he’d come on too strong. Or maybe you weren’t interested. Or maybe...you forgot.

That last bit stung a bit more deeply, and he had to admit that more than once, he’d thought about throwing in the towel and just moving on.

Marco sadly watched it all. Jean needed so few things in life to be happy. But lately, it seemed as if nothing could bring him round. The mention of you was one of the last few things that brightened him and Marco wished you could stay with some modicum of permanence.

Then one blessed April week, a freak storm descended over the weekend and took its time sweeping through the city so that by Monday, in between spots of sunshine, its tail end still blew in great grey clouds that unleashed their fury upon the unsuspecting populace come evening.

The fat droplets, at first innocent, grew steadily heavier with the wind, and then turned into certain, slanting precipitation. The skies howled. Needles of rain lashed the pavement, ripping trees and pelting shop fronts. Pedestrians caught by surprise stumbled after overturned umbrellas as they sought shelter from the gale as best as they could.

You were one such unfortunate pedestrian. It was only cloudy when you left the bookstore and were on your way home when the wind picked up and the rain began to fall in earnest. Before you knew it, you could barely see in front of you and it became impossible to walk to the subway station at the next block.

All shops along this stretch of Main Street were shuttered. There was only one exception - a faint white glow between the pale turquoise panes of a French door. The display window beside it was dark and the people inside - if there were still people inside - were probably closing down for the day. 

You held on to desperate hope. Crossing your arms tighter around yourself, you pushed forward against the wind, swallowing your pride and hunching under the deluge as you clung to the icy brass handle and knocked and hollered for mercy.

At first, there was nothing but the pealing wind and the blood thumping in your ears. But a moment later, a lock turned and then quite suddenly, the door you leaned against swung backwards, sending you slipping and tumbling into relative warmth. Someone grabbed you around the shoulders and when you had righted yourself, the streaming pavement was dry tile, the rain was no longer beating down on you, the wind had quieted into a muffled background noise, and you were as sodden as a drowned rat.

Gasping your first lungful of air, you dragged dripping hair away from your face and looked up to thank -

Jean Kirschtein stared at you, mouth agape.

Movement and sound rippled behind him from the only bright spot across the dimmed shop front. Swinging doors opened and shut and then a second voice, accompanied by the squeaking footfalls of leather shoes, called out, 

“Jean? Babe? Everything all right? Who was at -”

Marco Bodt emerged from behind the counter, candlesticks in one hand and a lighter in the other. He blinked at you and Jean for a moment. Then, clicking his tongue, he set everything down and rushed over.

“Got caught in the rain, didn’t you?” He fussed wonderfully, talking a mile a minute and tutting and cooing and looking you over from waterlogged head to puddling feet. “What a lucky thing to find your way here while Jean and I were in the front rooms! Very, very lucky! Here, love -”

“I’m sorry about your floor -” you began, horrified when you spluttered rainwater with it. 

Marco promptly shushed you with a very motherly, very upset, “Nonsense! We’ve got to get you dried off! There are towels in the back. I’ll see if I can find you a change of clothes.” 

Hardly pausing for breath, he spun you around and marched you to “the back”, tossing a “Jean baby, set the table for three, please? We won’t be long!” over his shoulder.

Jean stared at the trail of water you left in your wake.

“The back” consisted of a series of rooms in the same Rococo theme as the rest of Rosé, and was similarly permanently perfumed with the scent of sugar and vanilla. As he led you through them, Marco’s hands, where he held you by the wrists, were soft and warm like he’d just been kneading buttered dough.

He tugged you through a ridiculously tall, slender pair of hand-painted doors (that quite frankly looked like they’d been transported from some forgotten chateau for the sole honour of being installed in Rosé’s back rooms) into a vast locker room where you were promptly furnished with fluffy towels and dry clothes and left to change while Marco waited in the hallway outside. 

When you were done, he demanded for your wet clothes and to your mortification, draped them to dry in front of the blazing ovens. Then he congratulated the two of you for a job well done and declared that it was time for dinner.

The storefront was still dim, though now vastly improved by spots of low, ambient lighting. Jean had sequestered one of Rosé’s cafe tables where he arranged Marco’s candles, a tall vase of fresh-cut flowers, and gleaming tableware. He had just finished lighting the last candlestick when you and Marco appeared.

“Hey, sweetheart.” With a cocked head and lopsided grin. 

This was more like the Jean you met all those weeks ago.

He pulled out a chair and Marco, nodding and smiling encouragingly, nudged you towards it. It felt strangely like intruding on something meant for you.

Jean’s pleasure was palpable as he took in your borrowed outfit, gaze roving from the damp strings of your hastily toweled hair, the thumbs twiddling at the end of your enormous borrowed shirt, the too-big chef’s jacket sagging beyond your shoulders, and the ballet flats on your feet, mismatched in this odd get-up. 

“Mighty glad to have you back,” he declared with a flourish as you sat down and he and Marco took the seats on either side of you. “I was beginning to think we wouldn’t see you again.”

You lowered your head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be!” Breezy, bright Marco. Catching on to your discomfort, he took over the soup tureen and ladled out portions with all animated clatter. “These happy little accidents should keep happening. We’re so very glad to see you again!” A corner of his mouth twitched in a conspiratorial smirk as he served you. “Lobster bisque. Jean-bo’s favourite -”

Jean-bo spluttered.

“Eat up. It’s warming on a cold night like this.”

Smiling gratefully, you attempted to mimic his solicitousness by taking charge of the garlic butter bread and parking a slice next to everyone’s soup. Marco beamed at you. Jean started, then softened in the best kind of way.

The next few moments were spent silently eating to the thunder of rain and quiet clinking of dishes. Blowing a happy little sigh, you let yourself settle into their comfortable companionship.

“Lucky thing you got caught in the rain on a Monday,” Marco volunteered, upon which Jean quickly explained, 

“We come to this branch every Monday. Stay late, too.” And his and Marco’s hands found their way across the table to each other. 

“Mondays come after the weekend rush and are the slowest days,” Marco supplied without missing a beat. “So on Monday nights, Jean and I like to get back into the kitchen and be creative. We call it R&D Mondays.”

“But not before we called it Date Night Mondays.” Under the candlelight, Jean’s hands momentarily tightened around the fingers intertwined in his, and he waggled his eyebrows at Marco, who laughed softly. To you, “It really started as Date Night Mondays. We just couldn’t stay out of the kitchen.”

They looked at each other with the softest, most loved-up expressions you’d ever seen.

Then Marco, ever conscious not to let you feel left out, asked, “How’d you come to be caught in the storm?”

“I was leaving work,” you said over Jean clearing the soup dishes and Marco serving the seared rack of lamb. The hearty fragrance of the meat and the fresh mint sauce reminded you of the dinner with Erwin that led to your chance meeting with Jean and Marco. 

The thought of it was a grounding weight within you.

“Thought I’d try to outrun the storm,” you admitted sheepishly to Marco’s tsk-ing and Jean’s concerned frown. “Guess I was wrong.”

Shaking his head disapprovingly, Jean began to say something about how you should have never left your workplace under the current weather conditions, ending with a long-winded rant about how, if he were the boss of you, he’d make you sit your ass down until the storm passed.

Marco fondly let him go on this impassioned rant, then casually asked where you worked. You gave him the name of a chain bookstore with a branch at a nearby mall.

“Part-time job?”

You nodded. This time, it was Jean who asked,

“Putting yourself through Uni?”

In a manner of speaking. This merited yet another nod, and your companions exchanged tiny smiles before returning to their food. Cutting up a bite-sized piece of meat, Marco murmured,

“Hardworking girl. We like that.”

You were about to brush off this strange remark when Jean, mirroring his partner, began asking you a slew of questions: where did you go to school, what did you study, what year you were in? Again, you told them, though this time with a little bit more wariness.

Marco gently nudged Jean, and with the most harmless smile said, “We respect that you’re hardworking, that’s all. Reminds us of ourselves before there was Rosé.”

You couldn’t fathom a time when there was no Rosé. Not a time when Jean and Marco were not as they currently were, and told them so. Jean laughed at your amazement.

“Of course there was a time before Rosé! It was when Marco and I were just a pair of squirts who had fallen madly in love in culinary school over a pot of melting chocolate!”

“Jean,” Marco tried to admonish, but his protest died with his splitting, ear-to-ear grin.

“Rosé is a dream come true.” The whole of Jean’s face shone as he spoke, and from there on, Marco was content to sit back and let him tell the tale.

He told you about how the two of them got on after graduation. Set on becoming patissiers, both of them pursued their dreams together under the tutelage of a chef who “was born in hell but cooked so well that heaven wept”.

“His name’s Keith Shadis,” Jean went on, and the mention of this name was enough to have Marco pursing his lips, attempting to suppress a smile against the rim of his wine glass. “Bald, empty-eyed. Absolutely forbidding-looking.” Jean widened his eyes and drew his brows together, making a face like he was telling a monster story to a kid. 

You laughed.

“He’s no laughing matter, young lady!” He thundered, looming over the table at you. “Keith Shadis could yell your eardrums raw and he  _ delighted _ in it! Ran his kitchen with military efficiency and churned out the most delicate, award-winning pastries every time!”

Marco evenly put in, “Jean-bo was his protege, you know.” And when an embarrassed Jean dropped his act, elbowed him in the ribs and teased, “Teacher’s pet.”

Jean looked ironically pleased.

“He’s the creative one,” Marco said, elbow against the edge of the table and chin on the back of his hand. “Keeps me up all night conceptualising. One time, he shot awake at three in the morning like a man possessed because he’d dreamed up a new macaron and couldn’t wait until morning to draw it.”

“I didn’t want to lose the concept,” came the muttered unrepentance.

Rolled eyes. “Of course, darling.”

They were one unit, Jean and Marco. A single entity that operated so seamlessly they seemed to even breathe in synch. And yet not once did they make you feel like an outsider. In the time you were with them, Jean and Marco drew you into their fold just as if you’d been one of them since time immemorial.

“We married a month before opening Rosé.”

“At that time, we were already taking special orders and had bought out an old pastry shop whose owner was retiring.” 

The lamb was gone by then but the three of you remaining sitting, talking around the candles and the dimmed lights over the front counter. The storm outside had been long forgotten. It had no place here, in Jean and Marco’s flower garden of dreamy memories.

“We were working on a wedding cake,” Jean recollected, sitting back with hands folded over his stomach. “Huge thing. Absolutely complicated. Bride and groom wanted the most monstrous stunner.”

Marco, smiling down at the linen and empty plates, idly stroked the base of his wine glass with a ring finger. The ice shifted in its bucket. Clinked. Glass creaked as the bottle of wine resettled.

“We were talking about what to name the shop.”

“About to open and still couldn’t decide,” Jean shook his head fondly.

“It had to be perfect.” Marco held out a hand that Jean at once took into his own. 

“It is perfect.”

They smiled at each other, their eyes dark and shining in the ambient lighting.

“Jean proposed over the buttercream roses we were piping.”

“Marco said yes, of course.” More than just a little smug. Then he looked at his husband and you swore big bad Jean melted with affection. “That’s when we decided to name the shop Rosé.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t because we were drinking rosé wine that night and you’d had a little too much?” Marco teased, beaming at you as he gently stroked Jean’s empty ring finger. Only then did you notice that neither of them wore wedding bands.

As Jean grumbled, “That was definitely not how it went,” Marco noticed you looking, and raised both his and Jean’s left hands. 

“We don’t wear jewelry in the kitchen. Don’t want it falling off and getting baked with the pastries.” Giving Jean’s fingers another little squeeze, Marco gently kissed where the wedding band would have been. “Jean always forgets to put his on when we leave the kitchen. I have to keep reminding him. Don’t want him snatched up, you know.”

Jean reddened. Protested with a mutter that sounded like, “You just like to hang trinkets on me all the time.”

“I like to spoil you,” Marco corrected.

“Too much.”

You couldn’t help smiling with them.

Jean suddenly remembered that he still had mille-feuille set aside for you. “Lucky thing Sasha was in a rush to get home today that she forgot to beg for it again.” And he shook his head, sounding affectionately exasperated.

“Speaking of,” Marco piped up, “How did that go? That dinner you planned for your special friend?”

“Oh, fine!” you bubbled, always glad to be reminded of your latest, most important success. “He enjoyed it very much! Rosé is his favourite.”

“Oh?”

“He has a sweet tooth.” The admission had you breaking out into a beaming grin of your own. Returning it with a softer one, Marco swirled his wine in thought, and as he moved to sip it, casually asked,

“How would you like to learn how to make sweets for him?”

You and Jean both started, heads whipping towards Marco. But he was absolutely serious, and with a single meaningful look, had Jean nodding in understanding.

“My friend would love that,” you honestly said, the unspoken conversation between both men flying completely over your head.

“Then Marco and I will teach you!” Jean rushed all too quickly. “Come over every Monday night!”

You protested. It was their R&D night. It was their date night! You couldn’t impose like that! Besides, they were such busy people. Surely there was always some more important thing that needed their attention? No, you definitely could not intrude. They’d already been kind enough -

“Sweetheart.” It was Marco this time, appraising you with hooded eyes, his wine glass empty. “We insist. So don’t worry about anything. If you want to, just say yes.”

You looked between them both - at Jean’s wide, pleading eyes and Marco’s steady stare.

You did want to. You enjoyed watching their easy affection; appreciated the familiar comfort of their company. Jean and Marco were down to earth and with them, you felt every bit yourself that you did not expect to feel in the company of prominent people like them.

Slowly, hesitantly, you began to nod. And then you were nodding a tad more vigorously each time until both Jean and Marco broke out into smiles so huge that Jean had to jump out of his seat, arms wide open, booming, 

“You will? Every Monday night?”

He and Marco smothered you and your “Yes!” into the biggest hug.

And so began your regular Monday date night R&D with Jean and Marco at Rosé along Main Street.

\---

The turning point happened while all three of you were standing around a flour-dusted counter in matching jackets that Jean insisted on having custom-made for your special Mondays together. He was the visionary genius who baked like a disaster. Level-headed, methodical Marco preferred to be the brains behind their recipes.

That Monday night, while visionary Jean rolled out fondant for his princess cake, level-headed, methodical Marco reminded his better half of a party they had to attend. Jean stared at him in horror.

“Weren’t we just catering that thing?”

“Not this time, babe.”

Grumbling something about boring parties, Jean wheedled and whined, thumping and sulking and asking Marco multiple times if he was  _ absolutely sure _ they had to attend.

Marco was always absolutely sure.

“Darn it.” Nose wrinkling like a crabby bunny’s, Jean folded his arms and glared at the mint green sheet of icing.

“Marco, he’s scheming.” 

“That he is, love.” And Marco snorted as his Jean-bo turned the full force of his petulant glare on his husband and stuck out his tongue. Marco pretended scandalised shock. “Goodness, Jean! I hope you don’t plan to do that in front of the guests!”

“I just might.”

Marco shrugged at you. “At least he looks cute doing it.”

You giggled. 

“This is no laughing matter. It’s a boring party.”

You laughed anyway. “There’s no such thing as a boring party.”

“There is if you’ve been to enough -” And quite suddenly, Jean’s mouth dropped as the greatest epiphany washed over him. “You!” he barked, two fingers jabbed in your direction, “You will come with us and improve that party!”

Marco looked intrigued.

You were already shaking your head. “No way. Absolutely not. I have no experience with parties. I’ll just end up embarrassing you.”

“Nonsense!” Jean thundered. “It’s only a semi-formal party. No fancier than your highschool prom.”

Alarmed, you turned to Marco for help, but he was looking just as interested by Jean’s idea. There would be no help from that end.

“Jean,” you pleaded, “I really don’t think I should. I don’t know how to act at parties like that. I - I’ve never been to prom.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Embarrassed, you hurried to add, “It wasn’t mandatory in my school -”

“But why didn’t you go?” Jean’s brows knitted. “Everybody looks forward to prom!”

“It seemed wasteful -”

“It’s a milestone!”

You flinched. Hunching a little into yourself, you quietly admitted, “We didn’t have the money to spare on a prom dress.”

That silenced Jean at once. Reflexively, he sought out Marco and found the latter already looking repentant.

“We’re sorry,” Marco offered. “We shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No!” you gasped, “Not at all! I really don’t mind. It’s just a party. I never felt lik I missed out!”

Smiling as widely as you could, you reassured them that you grew up with all the important things in life - a loving family, good friends, a roof over your head, and enough food on the table for everyone. You didn’t exactly live in plenty, but you didn’t go without, either.

“I had enough,” you promised, eliciting a strange expression from Marco. He slid off his stool to join you at the end of the counter and patted your head. You leaned gratefully into the touch.

“You’re a good girl,” he murmured. “A very good girl.”

Jean said nothing, but he wore a drawn expression and kept stealing glances at you all night. It wasn’t until about midnight when you were sitting at one of the cafe tables out on the shop floor around tea and slices of Jean’s dainty princess cake, that he broke his silence.

“You’re coming to the party with us.” It sounded non-negotiable. Something possessive and protective coloured Jean’s tone. “You deserve to have fun,” he gritted out, as if angry at some unfair thing you couldn’t grasp. “You deserve to be shown off. And Marco and I will be the ones to do it.”

How could you refuse?

Jean pulled all the stops for that party and for all the parties after it. He took you shopping, dragged Marco along, and hauled a shocking array of clothes and shoes and purses and jewelry that he insisted you needed and which you should accept, anyway, as a token of their gratitude.

Gratitude for what, exactly, he never said. Marco only shrugged when you asked, perfectly happy to go along with whatever mad new scheme Jean whipped up.

It wasn’t that you were running out of space (Erwin, with all foresight, had predicted that girls would want clothes, and would want to amass a collection of it, and so had ordered an apartment that came with a luxurious walk-in closet the size of a third bedroom, of which you’d occupied only a corner - at least until now). Rather, the amount of designer-label packaging thrown out of your place was beginning to elicit attention. Not to mention that you were sure Jean was spending an alarming amount of money on clothes you’d probably never finish wearing. 

“You have to stop buying me things,” you declared one regular Monday night over fraisier and fragrant Earl Grey. 

Jean and Marco had just taken you to yet another one of their extravagant parties over the weekend, and the aftermath of it had arrived in your place that morning straight from the dry cleaner’s. You then spent an inordinate amount of time cross-legged on your closet floor, admiring its silk-and-lace layers and thinking what an utter waste for this dream to spend the rest of its days hanging in storage with its counterparts, worn once and nevermore in favour of the next new creation.

Jean didn’t even look up from tweezing a perfect strawberry slice into place. “Don’t you like the clothes I pick?”

“No! They’re very nice -”

“Then I’ll keep buying them and you’ll keep wearing them.”

“But they’re so expensive!”

One outfit cost more than a semester’s worth of textbooks. You discovered this after a chance peek at Jean’s receipt at the checkout, in the split second before he folded it up and stuffed it into a back pocket like it was nothing more than a bit of used tissue paper. All the rest of that night, you fretted over all the things Jean and Marco bought you, wondering if they had to be insured.

You sighed. “Surely you have better things to spend your money on?”

Jean shot you the sternest stare. He straightened. Set down the tweezers and the saucer of giant blueberries he was using as garnish. His mouth was a tight line that spelled trouble for you. Marco was happy enough to not intervene, and carried on smiling and serenely decorating his miniature strawberry shortcake - the homey, classic take on Jean’s fraisier.

“Now see here, young lady,” Jean began, finger wagging with every syllable of his scolding, “Don’t you go saying things like that. In fact, don’t even think about it! You deserve to have every single thing Marco and I give you.”

“But Jean,” you tried to object one last time in a teeny voice, “it is such a waste -”

“You are not a waste!” he roared, so loudly it echoed in the kitchen and made Marco dump a bunch of powdered sugar onto the crowd of strawberries he was dusting. “You are not a waste of anything. Don’t let me hear you say that ever again.”

“I didn’t say -”

“You were thinking it. Between the lines.”

You pouted, hands wrapped around the teapot you’d put yourself in charge of pouring. Marco finally looked up from his snowed-in shortcake, appraised yu and Jean, and gently said, 

“You’ll do well to listen to Jean-bo. He thinks of himself that way sometimes, too. That’s why he hates seeing it in people he cares for.” 

Jean attempted to grumble indiscipherables to this, but Marco waved them all away. “If cost is your only worry, forget about it. We’re more than happy to give you what we can. Besides,” he smiled indulgently at you and Jean, “it’s cathartic for Jean-bo to have someone to lavish love on.”

And that was the end of it. 

Jean returned to his fraisier while he and Marco laughed at the state of the shortcake. You kept busy refilling teacups and licking frosting and chewing on the large, sweet strawberry Jean insisted on hand-feeding you. Let Marco guide your hands as you gently dusted Jean’s perfect cake.

The old conversation was abandoned for another day.

\---

That other day came in the middle of the week when Marco, quite out of the blue, showed up at the bookstore at the end of your early evening shift.

“I told Jean we’re going to pick out your dress for this Friday night’s party,” he said by way of explanation. “Walk with me?”

At first, the conversation was light. Superficial. What did you do today? How was work? Anything interesting happen? Then the topic petered out with your mutual impatience, and as the two of you strode out of the mall into the clear, wide avenues at this part of town, Marco admitted, 

“I’m going to be frank with you. Jean and I would like to keep you on as our sugar baby. Would you be interested?”

You stopped in your tracks.

“Nothing much will change,” he reassured you. “We’ll carry on as we are now. It’ll just be...official.”

At this, you turned to face him squarely. “I don’t understand.”

Gently grasping your arm, he steered you around and down the street. It was still relatively light out, though the shops and the bright windows of the rows and rows of shopping malls had begun to shine into the dusk like earth-bound stars.

Speaking quietly, squeezing the inside of your elbow, Marco said, “It’s true what Jean said - that we met in culinary school, fell in love, married young. We had plenty of dreams -”

“- like Rosé.”

He smiled down at you. “Yes, love. Exactly like Rosé.” The pair of you walked slowly; leisurely, even, and quite aimlessly. “We started with nearly nothing, too. Well, nothing but dreams. And in those days when we talked about opening our own shop, Jean and I dreamed about it becoming a blockbuster success. We dreamed of living the good life, as young couples usually do.”

“You’re successful now,” you pointed out.

“Beyond our wildest dreams,” Marco agreed. “And I’m comfortable about where we are. Confident about what we’ve done. But Jean…” Here he paused, and when you looked up at him, you saw that his forehead was lined with worry. “I think sometimes Jean doesn’t realise it. He doesn’t see that we’ve arrived and that we’ve achieved what we said we would. So he keeps going and going -”

“Jean has the biggest dreams.”

“That he does.” The pedestrian light flicked red just as you were about to cross, and Marco instantly pulled you backwards. Back to the sidewalk, back flush against himself, almost instinctively. He wrapped a secure arm around your shoulders and without pausing to think anything of it, continued, “I am proud of Jean. I will go where he wants and will do what he wants. I just wish…” Marco heaved a little sigh, “I just wish he wouldn’t work himself too hard. I wish he’d pause and take the time to enjoy what he’s earned.”

You had to grin. Marco and Jean were just about the sweetest couple you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. “You wish Jean would learn how to spoil himself.”

“Atta girl.”

The light turned green again, and in a burst of weightless feeling, you dragged Marco through the crosswalk, the two of you laughing and stumbling together like a pair of childish fools. As soon as you had made it to the other side, Marco pulled you into a brief hug, and breathlessly said into your ear,

“See, this is exactly what Jean needs!”

“What?” you laughed, “Fun and games?”

His “Yes,” was graver than you expected. As you meandered down another block, Marco continued, “Jean was like this. Like you are now. Before there was Rosé and everything else. When we were just married and dreaming of our future, Jean was playful. He laughed all the time. Licked raw batter from the whisks. Had to be the first to taste frosting.”

Marco shook his head and you thought you saw a smidge of melancholy in the motion.

“He lost it all trying to grow Rosé. He became serious. Turned into a workaholic trying to make our dreams come true.” His next exhalation sounded more like a sigh. “I don’t think that’s good for him. I think laughter suits Jean better.”

You thought so, too.

“He has the most gorgeous smile,” Marco said, beaming at you over this shared appreciation for Jean. “And I haven’t seen a real, big one from him in years. I haven’t seen him this happy in so long. This silly and this creative.” He lifted his eyes towards the darkening sky, and his next words were a thankful murmur. “No matter who or what he becomes, I will always love him. But now that you’ve come into our lives, he’s remembered how to be the Jean-bo I married. And I will always be grateful for that.”

No response could be adequate. For the next few moments, you and Marco walked together in relieved silence. Then as the evening chill settled upon the city, the hand around your elbow found its way to yours and with a surprised, “Goodness, you’re cold!” Marco took your frozen limbs in both of his and rubbed and blew warm life back into them.

“So will you consider it?” he asked. “Coming to be a certain, official part of our lives?” He looked equally earnest and nervous about your answer. “I know Jean’s been thinking of it. He just hasn’t gotten around to actually asking.”

As flattered as you were, and as much as you wanted to do all you could for Marco and Jean, who had gone over and beyond for you in so many ways, you had reservations of your own. Specifically, one that took the form of warm blue eyes and floppy blond hair, who was also immensely kind and always had a ready, “Hello, darling,” to greet you with.

Marco caught on. “Do you want to think about it?”

You nodded, beyond grateful.

“Does this perhaps have anything to do with that special friend of yours?” He smiled knowingly. “The one with a sweet tooth who loves mille-feuille?”

“Busted.”

You shared a quiet laugh. 

“Think about it, then,” he said, and with one of your hands in his coat pocket, brushed back wisps of your hair as he stepped forward to kiss your forehead. “But I hope you’ll decide to give us a chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literal sugar daddies!! >__< Part 1 of 2 because I got carried away. So much for keeping this novella-length. 
> 
> some details inspired by BB's birthweek! ~~didja see what i did, b??? >:D~~
> 
> for reals, though. we've both had a shitstorm of a week. talking to each other and working on this chapter has been the escape I look forward to at the end of the day. So I hope this installment lived up to BB's hype and is the cherry on top of an awesome Monday for her! Also hope y'all enjoyed reading as much as we did headcanon-ing and shitposting to each other! <3


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